The latest edition of the all-American junk show’s attempt to climb the six classic alpine north faces. If you don’t want to read the whole TR and are just here for climbing info, scroll on down to the beta. 

Someday, we’ll be good at this. Someday, we’ll climb a big, committing, classic alpine line, and everything will be perfect. We’ll have the proper beta, we’ll arrive on time and in shape, we’ll never get lost on route, and we’ll finish well within the recommended time. But not today.

Approach 

Sid and I drove from Milan to Bondo, Switzerland, on Saturday September 4th, 2021. Sid’s partner, Federica (the real hero of this story), came along also, as well as our friend Arielle, and my dog Moose. We’d planned to tackle the Via Cassin on Piz Badile, while the Federica, Arielle, and Moose went to a spa outside St Moritz for a few days. They would meet us in Bagni di Massino on Sunday night after we finished the climb and exited on the Italian side. That didn’t happen. 

From Bondo, there are two options to hike into Sasc Fura hut. The ‘old route’ through Val Bondasca, which was partly destroyed by a landslide in 2017, and is officially closed, and the ‘new route’, a 5-6 hours uphill slog covering some 1000+ vertical meters. We took the new route, and suffered through an afternoon of scrambling through wet forests and slick rocks with heavy backpacks. It rained on and off that Saturday (something that would become a problem during the climb), and the forest and rocks still held moisture when we walked through. It even snowed up high on the Piz Badile, and we could see hanging patches of snow high on the granite face. 

Apparently, the ‘old route’ is still viable, and it’s a bit of an open secret that people take it & from the rifugio to save energy from the much longer, more painful, new route. I can’t speak for the ‘old route’, or encourage anyone to take an officially closed, possibly dangerous path. But I can say that the ‘new route’ sucks. 

Sasc Fura itself is a wonderful and friendly hut. Three other parties of climbers were there, a pair of Italians, four Ukrainians, and two Swiss. The Swiss had their eyes set on the Cassin, while the others took the Spigolo Nord. After hut breakfast at 4.30am, we set out on the 1.45 hour approach to the base of the Cassin. Route finding here is pretty easy, but may be tricky higher up on the ridge in the dark, where the difference between cairns and piles of granite becomes slim. Essentially, keep the ridge on your left-hand side, follow the cairns, and after about 1.30 of walking, there will be a steeper scramble section (possibly with some snow) before arriving at the base of the Spigolo Nord. From there, we downclimbed, rappelled and walked to the start of the real climbing. 

The Climb

We let the Swiss party pass us. We knew they’d be faster, and secretly I felt better about following a party up so we could worry less about route finding. We simu-ed until the base of the Rebuffat Dihedral, where Sid led the beautiful 5a-ish crack dihedral. After, we swapped leads and simu-ed the next 2-4-ish pitches until the first hard 5c+ pitch. 

When talking about the pitches, it’s easy to get lost. Some beta says this is a 27 pitch climb, other say 17. There are longs stretches of 3b-5a climbing between the ‘crux’ / more challenging pitches. The easier sections are kind of nebulous, and pitches can start and end wherever you want.

The first crux is a delicate leftward traverse beneath a large steep dihedral. Maybe we were a bit off route too, but we found marginal protection. Thank god it was Sid’s lead, and he was up for it, because that pitch is absolutely not my style of climbing. The rain the day before complicated the picture, as water flowed over the delicate slabby footholds. Sid led out from a single bolt belay (I backed it up), and set up a three-piece anchor after about 30-40 meters of climbing. I followed, and had a small, but terrifying slip-fall, and kept climbing. 

We got a little bit lost in this section, as what we climbed didn’t match the topo. We never found the ‘Belay on horn with slings’ at the top of the 5c pitch. But on top the following pitch, we found a shiny, new two-bolt belay not mentioned by the topo. We swapped a few more leads on the exposed granite, then simu-ed the last two pitches to the Cengia Mediana, or the Noon Ledge. 

The Cengia Mediana is not the halfway mark. It’s closer to 1/3rd of the way. Route finding gets easier from here, but the climbing gets harder and you may have to pitch it out more than you’d like. It was about 2pm when we reached the ledge, and we knew we were in a bit of trouble. 

I got to lead the challenging 6a and 5c+ pitches above the ledge. Despite the more challenging grade, these were probably my favorite pitches (I did not have a good time on any of the pitches below the Noon Ledge). The 6a was much more my style of climbing: a steep dihedral crack with lots hand jams. It was a much more aggressive, physical, desperate pitch, instead of the delicate dance on tiny footholds below. The precipitation the day before made things worse, as the crack was filled with mud and running water. After 25 meters of climbing, I pulled myself out of the dihedral, and traversed to the right. Note - this is a common place where people get lost, as there is in-situ gear following the length of the dihedral. The route moves climber’s right out of the dihedral, and across a ramp to a new, left facing dihedral. After the desperate climbing and a monstrous runnout, I had never been happier to find the two shinny bolts at the belay. 

The next pitches went by easily, Sid’s 5b a fun, engaging dihedral system. The next 5c+ pitch was challenging, following a dihedral then underclinging a roof and traversing with delicate feet. 

From here, we swapped leads on two 5a pitches, one of 50m and one of 70m. Looking back, we probably should have simu-ed these ones. Route finding is a little challenging through here since there’s no obvious terrain features and little in-situ gear, but once you visualize the exit chimney, just follow easy climbing to its base. Sid lead the first of the infamous 5b V-chimney pitches. The moves may be 5b, but that does not do the pitch justice. The climbing starts out pretty easy, but after about 10 meters, you get sucked into the center and have to slug it out with the offwidth V. It makes for incredibly awkward climbing, especially with a backpack. Just keep flailing up, and eventually, chicken-winging turns into hand jams, and then pull through to the anchor. I’ve read that some people stem wide and avoid the offwidth section, but it would be much more difficult to protect. 

Two more pitches of 5b led us out of the chimney. The climbing should have been quick and easy, but the chimney was inundated, and the belays filled with snow making climbing and protection slippery, slow and more difficult. It was starting to get dark when we pulled out of the chimney. Somewhere in here, Sid called Federica and told her we weren’t going to make it to Bagni di Masino tonight. We simu-ed the last two 4a-4b pitches, I was run-climbing trying to cover the last pitches as quick as possible. I made it to just below the ridge when I realized I was off route. I brought up Sid, and followed him a few meters to the ridge. 

I don’t know what time we made the ridge, but it was fully dark. I lead out on the ridge, climbing by headlamp, trying to find my way through the maze of spires, downclimbs, and dark voids to the left a right. After maybe 2-3 pitches of slow simu-climbing in the dark, we decided to bivy. After finding a protected site, we set up a ‘nest’ anchor, ate some chocolate, and tried to sleep. “Do you feel like and alpinist?” I asked Sid between bites of chocolate, “Yes, and it sucks” he replied.

‘Do you feel like an alpinist?’ ‘Yes, and it sucks’

I put on every jacket I had, and stuffed my feet into my backpack for a cold, uncomfortable, sleepless night. Sid carried a -10 degree sleeping bag up the route, and slept in relative comfort. My poncho-style Pieps bivy served me well. I kept my helmet on and wedged it between some rocks to serve as a pillow. Using granite as mattress, sleep was hard to come by. The stars were pretty at least. A storm on the west side of the wall lit up the sky with sporadic flashes of lightning. 

It was cold and grey when we woke up. We stirred for a bit, dreading the idea of climbing in the fog. At about 6.30am, the sun came out and burned the clouds away. Clumps of clouds clung to the granite peaks, shrouding the mountains in a foggy veil. Once sunlight hit our bivy, the psyched returned and we climbed. 

We simu-ed the remaining pitches, several length of 3b-ish climbing (with a few very sketchy downclimbs and corner traverses) to the summit. It was about 8am. The Ukrainian party we’d seen at the hut met us on the summit. They’d finished the Spigolo Nord, and slept in the Bivacco Redaelli. We followed them down the Via Normale on the Italian side.

De-proach

Descending the Via Normale take about 2-2.5 hours to reach Rifugio Gianetti on the Italian side. It’s not overly complex, but definitely not to be underestimated. After taking our summit photos and sharing some whisky, we followed a mud path down a few pitch lengths until the first rapel. The rap stations are all large rings indicated with red paint (albeit, quite worn and less visible than they once were). The descent is a few sections of abseils, punctuated by a few sections of traversing, downclimbing and upclimbing on grade II terrain. If there looks like there’s a trail at the base of the abseil, you should probably follow it. The only key part is the up-climb before the final two rapels. After abseiling down a rocky gully full of loose rock, walk for a bit, then keep an eye out for a trial that goes up and the right. Follow it for a way, climbing up, then traversing, then downclimbing, until you reach the Castelli-Piatti Cross. The last two abseils are really the only ‘obligatory’ abseils (everything else is very moderate terrain, and can be downclimbed if needed) over a steep, overhanging dihedral. From there, it’s an easy walk through the morraine to the Rifugio Giannetti. From Rifugio Giannetti, it’s 2-2.5 hours of knee-busting downhill hiking to Bagni di Masino. After lunch at the Rifugio, we stumbled into Bagni di Masino at about 4.30pm, and Federica pulled up to meet us at 5. 

Lessons

“The artist’s life is a comparatively easy one. It’s those around him who suffer the most. The same could be said for an alpinist” -Bernadette McDonald / Voytek Kurtyka, The Art of Freedom

Before mentioning anything else, I would be remiss to not apologize again to Federica, who waited for us for hours on Sunday night. She bore the brunt of our fuck-ups, worrying and waiting to hear from us. We were prepared to bivy, so a night spent on the ridge was not a huge price for us to pay. But it put an unfair burden of fear, anxiety, and inconvenience on Federica, who’d already done more than enough to support our trip. In addition to dropping us off in Switzerland, she watched my dog the whole weekend, waited for us on Sunday night, and then left work on Monday to come pick us up when we finally made it down. 

Communication is probably our biggest lesson, especially with our support people. Phone service was spotty and batteries were low, so calling out to tell Federica we wouldn’t make it wasn’t really possible until late Sunday evening. However, we could have done a better job telling everyone beforehand what the possible scenarios were if we were late or absent. We had the experience and gear to survive a night out on the ridge, but Federica didn’t know that. 

Next, we underestimated this route. The hardest grade is ‘only 6a,’ but there’s an enormous gulf between clipping bolts on a 6a at the crag, and climbing an alpine 6a after 10 pitches with a heavy backpack. Even the ‘easy’ pitches were harder and slower than I expected, especially below the noon ledge. 

The Beta

If you don’t want to read my whole ass TR, here’s the important shit for climbing this beast. We brought 15-ish alpines/slings, cams BD size .3-3 with double .75 and .5, nuts, and two 60m ropes, and used almost all of it. Some stuff I wish I knew going in: 

1. This is an enormously committing undertaking. Plan on minimum two days, possibly three.

2. The approach to Sasc Fura sucks. It’s close to 1000m vertical gain. Your physical fitness should allow you do to that comfortably, and then be able to repeat it the next day without issue. The ‘Old Route’ approach may save you some pain, but it’s officially closed and I can’t verify if it’s any good. However, Sasc Fura itself is wonderful, with good food and company. 

3. The majority of this climb is granite slab with delicate feet. There are a few dihedral and chimney pitches, but moving quickly and easily on slab with delicate feet is key. I was not ready for this, and paid for it.

4. The first half of the climb is traversing, mostly on slab with delicate feet. This makes for heady exposure, more challenging protection, and bailing impossible. Also see point 3. 

5. The slab pitches are  more challenging to protect. However, they are the ‘easy’ pitches, so running it out may be more appropriate. That said…

6. Get ready to run it out. I’m a fairly conservative climber, and I was still 20-30 meters between pieces sometimes. 

7. Watch out for loose holds, especially the flakes on the ‘easy’ pitches. A lot of the flakes are unsupported and unattached, and some are the size of a car door. I would find a good undercling or side pull on a flake, grab it, and feel a chunk of rock the size of a dinner table shift in my grasp. Or, I’d place a cam in a crack beneath a flake, only to watch the flake shift a few centimeters. Numerous other TRs I read mentioned the loose rock, and many reported other parties falling due to breaking holds. 

8. September is very late season for this climb. The north aspect means the face stays wet far longer than it should. See also points 3, 4, 6. 

9. Simu, Simu and more Simu. See the pitch breakdown below. You should be at a level where you’re comfortable simu-ing up to 5a-5b

10. Route finding is one of the major cruxes of this route. A good topo and reading past TRs will go a long way to avoid getting lost. 

11. If you need, there are potential bivvy sites all along the ridge, and even some in the V-chimney (they were filled with snow during our ascent). We climbed about half the ridge by headlamp, so getting up to Bivacco Redaelli in the dark is definitely doable.

Pitch Breakdown

Topo from Marcel Dettling, 2008

Depending on who you ask, this climb has somewhere between 13 and 27 pitches. Here’s how I would break it down: 

Downclimb / Rapel to traverse

Length 1: ? grade, ? meters, Simu-traverse, and climb up easy chimney, dihedral, find belay with slings on horn at the base of the Rebuffat Dihedral. 

Length 2: 5a, 50m, Pitch or Simu, Rebuffat Dihedral, fun 5a crack until you get to the slab. Then traverse left to a single bolt belay. 

Length 3: 4a-3a, ?? meters, Simu, climb/traverse starting from the diagonal crack, moving to progressively easier climbing. Pass behind a large horn, arrive at a single bolt belay before the hard climbing. One of the Topos says there’s a two bolt belay here, but we only found one. There is also a piece of tat hanging down from the dihedral above. This is where we stopped. 

Length 4: 5c+, 30-50m (depends where you stop), pitch, exposed, slabby traverse left, then move up. Stay left of the dihedral, and don’t get pulled to high into it. The topo says there’s a horn with slings at the end of this pitch, but we never saw it. We did find a two bolt belay not far from here though. 

Length 5: 5b, pitch, traverse diagonally left, then climb up. There are not a lot of good landmarks to follow here, and the topo doesn’t provide much guidance. Basically, you want to climb around and on top of the dihedral without ever touching it. If the climbing feels harder than 5b, you’re in the wrong spot. Two bolt belay after moving right, after climbing above dihedral. Topo & climbing is nebulous here. Setting up a belay on gear /pitons may be needed. 

Length 6: 5a, pitch / simu. Follow right-facing dihedral straight up, two bolt belay. Probably link this with Length 7. 

Length 7: 3b, simu. Probably simu and link with Length 6. Move up and left to get to Cengia Mediana / Noon Ledge. Aim for the base of the chimney. Belay is about 10m up inside the chimney, one bolt. 

Cengia Mediana / Noon Ledge

Length 8: 6a, 50m, pitch. Follow left-facing dihedral for about 25 meters, then exit climber’s right. The dihedral can be stemmed, or hand-jammed, or both. There is gear going straight up, do not follow it. There are some pitons climber’s right of the dihedral the signal about where to exit. Then, follow a long ramp to the base of another left-facing dihedral. Two bolts are at the base of the next dihedral, not visible until you’re right on top of them. You will be happy to find them. 

Length 9: 5b, 45m, pitch, another left-facing dihedral. Lots of pins, this time it’s ok to follow them all the way to the two-bolt belay. 

Length 10: 5c+, 50m, pitch, follow the dihedral straight up, then move left using it as an undercling (delicate feet), then continue to follow it up and slightly right. Two bolt belay. 

Length 11: 5a, 50m, Simu, follow horizontal crack from the belay to climber’s left, then take the path of least resistance up, and eventually move right. Two bolt belay, but you should probably keep climbing up Length 12. 

Length 12: 5a, 75m, Simu, climb up and slightly right. From here the chimney pitches can be seen. Aim for those and take the path of least resistance. Two bolt belay at the base of the chimney. 

Length 13: 5b, 50m, Pitch, the infamous V-chimney. only about 10m of actual offwidth. Stemming wide may be an option. Two bolt belay

Length 14: 5b, 50m, Pitch, fun, easy climbing, follow the chimney, hope it’s not too wet. Two bolt belay. 

Length 15: 5a, 50m, Pitch or Simu. Follow the chimney, don’t get pulled too far left or right, follow the topo here. Two bolt belay on pedestal, but you may want to just continue climbing to the ridge. 

Length 16: 4c, 50m, Simu, move left towards a left-facing dihedral/flake, and follow it. Two bolt belay climber’s left of the dihedral, but you’ll probably want to keep climbing. 

Length 17: 4b, 30m, Simu, follow the dihedral, but before reaching the ridge, take a ramp climber’s left to reach the ridge. Two bolt belay. 

Length 18+: 3a/3b Follow path of least resistance to the summit along the ridge. Watch out for sketchy downclimbs. Several of the spires and subsequent downclimbs may be avoided by dropping down on the left side of the ridge. Lots of bivvy spots if needed. Maybe 4 pitches to summit. 

A strong team should probably try to simu everything below 5b. This would mean only pitching it out for the first 5c+ pitch, and the following 5b section, the 3 pitches immediately after the Cengia Mediana, and the chimney pitches (and maybe the Rebuffat Dihedral), making some 6-7 pitches in total.

Resources: 

Good TR + good topo: https://mdettling.blogspot.com/2012/08/pizzo-badile-via-cassin-6a.html

Good TR: https://www.camptocamp.org/outings/1343272/fr/piz-badile-voie-cassin#swipe-gallery

Mtn Proj, good pitch breakdown: https://www.mountainproject.com/route/107770718/via-cassin

Gulliver: Good pitch breakdown & general beta: https://www.gulliver.it/itinerari/badile-pizzo-via-cassin/

Secondary Topo, we found this one to be less helpful: https://www.gulliver.it/itinerari/badile-pizzo-via-cassin/#media&gid=2&pid=3

Descent beta: https://www.gambeinspalla.org/gruppi_montuosi/alpinismo/altre_zone/pizzo_badile_3308_m_-_via_normale.htm

Descent beta: https://www.vienormali.it/montagna/cima_scheda.asp?cod=3325

Other takeaways

All of the thanks and apologies to Federica for waiting for us, picking us up, and watching Moose for the weekend. 

Full disclosure, I did not enjoy large parts of this climb. Especially the pitches below the Cengia Mediana. Slabby traverses are not my style of climbing. Compounded with the cold, the wet, and the growing sense of dread that we were moving too slow, and retreat was not an option, for large parts of this climb were not enjoyable to me. Of course, the feeling has subsided since my time on the wall, and I’m starting to want to go back. 

I changed some things in my training in preparation for this climb. The heavy pack carries and GPP I’ve been doing were instrumental for the approach and general endurance on the climb. The climbing however, did not translate well. Sending overhung routes and bouldering 4x4s in the gym doesn’t translate to skill or efficiency on alpine granite slab.